Foundations Paper: Situational EthicsJoseph Francis Fletcher became an American professor whom later founded the theory of situationethics. He was a reigning academic involved in the topics ofabortion, infanticide, euthanasia, eugenics, and cloning. He was formerly ordained a priest, but becamedisenchanted with the clergy and proclaimed himself an atheist. Fletcher (1905 ­ 1991) was born inNewark, New Jersey. During his lifetime he would of experienced the 1960's - colloquially preferred tothe `'Hippies movement'' (1964 et prorsum). He witnessed excessive promiscuous activity,recreational drug use, and unique morals and religion exuberating from large amounts of the Americanpopulation. Hippies made no effort to confine themselves within the law, or pre-existing socialconsensus of etiquette. This resulted in Fletcher orchestrating an ethical conduct that can be versatilesuffice for the present social reform, as with the law. As he succinctly describes in his book SituationEthics: The New Morality (1996),In brief, situation ethics is a relative theory that assesses a particular situation, deciding whether or notto perform a certain resolution based on what will produce the most love; this theory is relative becauseit does not constrict ways of attaining the most love in every situation, only that it achieves so. Makingit a consequentialist theory of ethics because it is concerned in the latter rather the former. Thereforemakes it a teleological theory as it is decides moral quality on the consequences. Fletcherdisambiguates the concept of love, distinguishing it from the common use of the word featured ineveryday life. He notes that the hyperbolic or misconception that have led to the weakening of theword. So situation ethics adopt the Latin vernacular; agape love - unconditional, absolute, disinterestedand universal love that involves doing what is best for other people. Fletcher believed that by basinghis theory on this he was following Jesus' teaching of `love thy neighbour.' He said that agape love inthe only absolute law and so all other laws are just guidelines that can be broken if another actionwould cause more love.Fletcher redefines the construct of conscience as he uses it in a special sense in Situation Ethics. Herebukes the idea that conscience is intuition, a channel for divine guidance, the internalised values ofthe individual's culture, or the part of reason that makes value judgements, because all of these treatconscience as an entity - as though a noun. Which Fletcher believes is a mistake. Rather, for him,conscience is appropriate in a verbal tense rather than a noun ­ it is something you do when you makedecisions, as he puts it, `creatively'.Fletcher addressed the three approaches to ethics that, they included. Legalistic Ethics: It is an absolute theory where the rules can never be broken. It is an ethicalsystem that contains rules for every situation. In Judaism a fence around the law was created becausepeople were apprehensive about the breach of the rules. This made killing, stealing, lying verboten:Including the prohibition of killing is in self-defence, war, abortion. This produces a web of laws neededconstant reciting/referring the provider of the norms to verify what is correct moral conduct. (Such asthe Torah, Koran, and bible etc.). Legalistic Ethics encounters problems when life's complexitiesrequire additional laws. People's morals are dictated by the rules that follow. Antinomian Ethics: Antinomianism is a way of life where there are no moral principles or rules atall. Hence, the word `'anti'' `'nomian'' literally means `against law' there is no connective tissuebetween one situation and another, no basis for generalising principles. A person using antinomianism Exemplar Response

Other pages in this set

Page 2

Here's a taster:

Foundations Paper: Situational Ethicsdoesn't really use an ethical system at all. He or she enters decision making as if each occasion wasunique. Meaning that a moral decision is spontaneity, there is no rational basis to it and so its resultsare unpredictable with no firm rational basis. It has potential to produce unprincipled and immoraloutcomes within the same situation encountered in a different context.…read more